How to Speed up Suffusion and WordPress show you how to improve Suffusion theme and WordPress performance for your site.

Last Updated: March 8, 2018

Latest News: I have updated the information below.

The following steps will help you improve your sites speed and SEO. This is one of the most important factors nowadays when working online. Search engines like Google love fast sites. They want the sites to load very fast in a desktop as well as a mobile device. If your site is fast loading on a desktop but slow when loading on a mobile device, you will loose ranking and visitors.

How To Speed Up Suffusion and WordPress

If you have a Facebook and Twitter account then you are probably using one or more plugins to automatically post to these social medias.

Optimize your images to reduce the size and increase speed.

Set up Suffusion to be responsive.

Set up Google Custom Search Engine.

Sharing on social media.

WP 4.2+ Emojis functionality

Important: The information below explains in detail each step above.

Modules

Step 1 ) For suffusion Modules set up the following under Appearance -> Suffusion Options -> Back-end -> Modules. See image below

Site Optimization

Step 2 ) For suffusion Site Optimization set up the following under Appearance -> Suffusion Options -> Back-end -> Site Optimization. See image below

Note: If you use a cache plugin to minimize your css files make sure you disable this option here.

The following image shows you what you should select.

Auto-generate the CSS and include it as a linked file (High load on server, elegant page source code)

Auto-generate the CSS and print it in the HTML source (Least load on server, ugly page source code) (This is the one you choose)

Auto-generate the CSS and link it as a file (Low load on server, elegant page source code)

Don’t auto-generate the CSS, and print it in the HTML source (Low load on server, ugly page source code)

Don’t auto-generate the CSS, and link it in the HTML source (Highest load on server, elegant page source code)

The following image shows you what you should select.

Minify generated CSS

Minify the CSS (Remember to disable if you use a cache plugin to optimize the CSS)

Don’t minify the CSS

Use “Lite” version of JQuery Cycle?

Use Lite version (4KB) (This is the one you choose)

Use Regular version (29KB)

Step 3 ) The following plugin Speed Booster Pack,I use in some sites to further optimize the speed. (Note: This plugin is very tricky. Use this plugin only if you know what you are doing.)

The plugin has a few options apart from Google Libraries. Just play around with the settings until you get the desired speed.

Step 4 ) Install Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions and configure. This plugin has only a few options to setup, go to Settings -> Optimize DB Options and configure the plugin. Once you have it setup, simply run it regularly to optimize you database and especially after you have added a new post or updated a post.

Step 5 ) Install WP User Avatar to manage your local avatar and create a default local avatar. This will save time when visitors who don’t have an avatar use your default avatar.

Step 6 ) Install and set up Hyper Cache. Go to Settings -> Hyper Cache and configure the plugin. You might like to read my tutorial Hyper Cache General Settings.

Social Sharing Plugins

Step 7 ) If you have not signed up to Facebook and Twitter, then I recommend you do. Once you have signed up then read the following tutorial Publish WordPress Posts To Facebook and Twitter. Currently I am testing Zapier external service to publish posts and pages directly to Twitter and Facebook. There are many different online services for you to choose from. There are also great plugins that will do a great job. However the goal here is to use as less plugins as possible. That’s the reason why I choose an external service.

Note: The more plugins you use the more resources your server will use like memory and processing power. This will increase your page load time.

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Step 8 ) There are two tools you can use to help you with optimizing your images to speed up your site. Gtmetrix.com.

Step 9 ) Click on the following URL Responsive Settings to configure your theme to be responsive for mobile devices. Configuring this option means you don’t have to installed a responsive plugin. This in turn will reduce the processing of WordPress and reduce the request to the server.

Step 11 ) I am sure that most of you will be sharing your information with some of the most popular social medias out there like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google Plus, YouTube and more. The following URL Social Plugins is a list of social sharing plugins I recommend.

Step 12 ) Since WordPress 4.2 and above you have had the ability to customize the emojis in your website. These are those little smiley faces. What if you don’t really want that functionality because your run a business website and you also want to improve your speed. The following plugin Disable Emojis will disable that functionality from your website.

Optional Settings

Step 1 ) If you don’t use suffusion additional options you can disable them in your function.php file found in your parent or child theme folder. See option below.

remove_theme_support('suffusion-additional-options');

Step 2 ) Does your website follow Google rules? If you don’t know and would like to check you can use this great website varvy by Patrix Sexton.

Step 3 ) How does your website compare to W3 standards? Click on the following URL w3c.github.io/developers/tools/. You will find all the necessary tools to thoroughly check your website or blog. This should be a must do action every time you design a website.

I suggest that you use W3Schools which has all you need to help you troubleshoot css, html, js errors and more.

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If you install all the plugins mentioned above and you follow my instructions you will notice a difference in speed and performance for your website or blog. This will make Google happy and it is also good for SEO. Of course there are more options you can implement to speed up your WordPress website but I just wanted to use the simplest method for anyone who wishes to try without having to hack or add some code.

Other Options To Consider

If you are using a shared host for your website or blog. Shared host have many websites hosted in the one server using the same IP address. This can also cause problems with your speed and performance. You will also notice spiking on your account from time to time. Here is a website you can use to check and see how many websites are hosted on your shared server, web sites on server. This tool only reveals the main domains hosted on the shared server including the URL, it does not show add on domains or sub domains. If you want a total number of domains in your shared server then click on the following link domain tools reverse ip. This tool will give you a total number but it will not reveal the URL of the domains.

Once you have completed all of the above to Speed Up Suffusion and WordPress, click on the following URL Gtmetrix and run a test.

Note: Run a test before you begin applying the above settings and tweaks. Then run another test after you complete your customization. This will allow you to better compare your improvements.

“Important: Remember if you are on a Shared Hosting Account then you can only do so much to improve the speed running a WordPress website. If you are in a Pro Server Account speed starts to improve substantially. However if you are on a VPS or Dedicated Server, the speed will improve substantially.”

Mbrsolution Website Information (VPS account)

Info: Google Speed Test, 96/100 for desktop and 90/100 for mobile, I am very happy with this.

2 Responses to “How to Speed up Suffusion and WordPress”

Thank you for this great tutorial! I have followed it to the letter, installed everything you mentioned (and some more that I found on similar tutorials) and it has greatly improved speed according to webpagetest.org. and I am happy with the results except for the F grade for First Byte Time (back-end processing): 56/100585 ms First Byte Time153 ms Target First Byte TimeAny suggestions on how to improve this or is this related to where my site is hosted?Thanks!Diana

Hello Diana, thank you for your comment and I am happy to know that my tutorial helped you.

In regards to your question about the First Byte Time, there are many variables to consider. One of the most important is the server your site is hosted in. If you are on a shared account with your host, that could impact your results. Also, if you are running a lot of plugins and depending on the plugins that you are running that would also have an impact. There are other areas that one could also check.

The faster the server the better your results will be. Of course when you are talking about fast server you are talking about VPS or Dedicated Server. Or you can use hosting companies like wpengine. However if your website is new and does not generate a lot of traffic then running your website on servers mentioned above would be too costly.

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